


a tender magnitude

by astrogeny



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/F, they're literally just talking, this is the literary equivalent of single person facing left hiding their hands behind their back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 14:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1269466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrogeny/pseuds/astrogeny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucina is an old ache, one that Severa finds time to nurse in the spaces between her mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a tender magnitude

**Author's Note:**

> my first foray into fea fic, starring lucina/severa/my continued annoyance that they can’t support each other. i think this started out as an idea for what their hypothetical support chain could be like?

Severa doesn’t recall the exact moment she returns to consciousness, only that the immediate pain is enough to make her wish she could knock herself back out. The cloying film of a long sleep in her mouth is eventually what forces her to crack her eyes open once it becomes clear that falling asleep again is no longer an option. Behind the thick, off-white canvas of an infirmary tent, it’s impossible to tell how long she’s slept, only that her injuries are bad enough to have earned a spot sectioned off from other patients by a heavy curtain. Out of the corner of her eye, Severa spots a glass of water on a makeshift bedside table and allows herself a small groan at the prospect of getting it. Her entire torso screams in protest as she hauls herself into a sitting position with her right arm, not daring to try putting any of her weight on the left for fear of it giving out. Grabbing the cup, she tastes mint as she gargles the contents until it no longer feels as though a small animal has died and decomposed in her mouth. That done, someone has placed a veritable bastion of cheap, lumpy pillows at the head of her bed for support, and she gratefully falls back on them, in more than enough pain to take what she can get. She shuts her eyes again, only for them to snap back open as,

  
"Oh, good, you’ve found the water," from the entryway, "Aunt Lissa had asked me to tell you it was there if you were to wake up while I was here." Lucina graces her with a small smile as she closes the tent’s flap, Severa is unsure if this is the first or the last person she wants to be seeing right now. "May I?" Lucina asks, indicating a stool at the other side of Severa’s cot.

  
"Go for it," Severa says, glad at least that her voice doesn’t come out as some horrible croak. As she sits, the smile on Lucina’s face eases into a look of concern.

  
"I heard you were kicked by a horse?"

  
"Pegasus," Severa corrects, mouth twisting downwards. "Yeah, the irony’s not lost on me. I didn’t even get my shield up in time, so my arm got nailed, too. Stupid, I know."

  
"I’d think it would take a shield like Kjelle’s to truly block a kick from a pegasus," and leave it to Lucina to find some sort of weird consolation to give in the face of a total screw-up. Noticing that her hair’s been let down, Severa uses her good arm to gather most of it up and tuck it over her shoulder so that it falls down her chest. The motion is a fidget, an excuse to study Lucina without looking directly. Lucina is an old ache, one that Severa finds time to nurse in the spaces between her mother. She always stops herself from thinking about it too long or too far, a propensity for brooding not being enough to outweigh the implications.

"Is there anything I can get you? We haven’t had dinner yet, but I’m certain I can beg something light for you, provided you’re up for it."

  
"No, thanks—you might as well just toss me out in the rain and let me ooze out into the nearest sewer." The words are mullish, even childish as they leave her mouth, but Severa is seldom in a mood to care on a good day, and this is not a good day.

  
"It stopped raining several hours ago," is Lucina’s sensible response. "It’s actually quite lovely out right now."

  
"Thanks," Severa snaps, though it comes out more like a whine than anything else.

  
"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—" Severa cuts her off with a dismissive flap of the hand.

  
"It’s fine, gawds, I know what you meant. I’m just being all tetchy for no good reason." Another smile flits across Lucina’s lips, it’s suddenly much harder to breathe.

  
"I doubt I could bring myself to be in good spirits if I were injured this badly," she confesses.

  
"Yeah, well, better me than you." Lucina’s brow instantly furrows, Severa knows she’s once again managed to put her foot in her mouth.

  
"I’ve simply been lucky," Lucina says decisively. "Very, very lucky. In no small part because of how hard the rest of you work to ensure that I’m in as little danger as possible."

  
"Um, yeah? That’s our job, you know," Severa points out, even as she avoids meeting Lucina’s eyes. A silence yawns between them until Lucina, voice low, asks,

  
"May I be honest with you for a moment? It’s… It’s terribly selfish of me to think this way, and I know that I have a duty, but there are times when I can’t help but feel resentful, almost, of the idea that my life is in some way worth more than everyone else’s. I’m never quite sure what to make of the fact that I know any one of you would lay down their life if it meant mine could continue on."

  
"Lucina," Severa immediately starts, mouth well ahead of her brain as per usual, "Look, this is going to sound so melodramatic, but you’re, you’re our hope, okay? Even the ones who didn’t want to go back with you at first, they look at you now, and everyone has to admit we’ve got a shot at pulling this whole fate-changing thing off because you’re leading the charge or whatever." She trails off lamely, feigns an intense interest in her blanket. A thread is coming loose, and she twirls it around and around on her finger until it’s tight enough to start cutting circulation.

  
"That’s right," Lucina muses, "You were behind me from the start, weren’t you?"

  
"It’s not like there was anything left for us back there," the universal euphemism amongst their group for the future they left behind. "So of course I was gonna go with you. I would’ve gone with you even if nobody else wanted to."

  
"Severa, I’m honored," and Lucina’s voice has such a tender magnitude of earnestness that Severa wishes she could pick herself up and leave rather than having to stay put and face it head-on. She can feel her cheeks burn at the compliment, the only saving grace being the fading light in the tent.

  
"Yeah, well, I’m really sticking my neck out for you here, okay? Don’t expect me to get this mushy all the time." It’s phenomenally easy to wall herself in with a thick coating of abrasiveness, no matter how insincere. To her surprise, Lucina giggles. For someone with a voice that’s slightly husky, even boyish, Lucina has the clearest little laugh Severa has ever heard, like all the weight’s been stripped from her shoulders for an instant of unbridled mirth. Immediately, Severa recoils from herself for thinking about it in such a maudlin fashion. She reasons that the healers must have doped her up on something for her to start mooning over Lucina’s laughter like she’s Inigo making overtures to the nearest living thing in a skirt.

  
"I wouldn’t expect that of you at all, Severa," Lucina reassures her. "And thank you for hearing me out in my moment of weakness, there."

  
"No kidding—that got way too deep way too fast. But don’t feel like you have to be all perfect all the time or whatever, okay? That’s what you’ve got all the rest of us for, so you don’t have to do everything by yourself. Nobody’s gonna think less of you if you admit you’re not some sort of superhuman." If Lucina notices that perhaps Severa is talking in part about someone else as well, she leaves it tacit.

  
"Thank you again," she says simply, "I will make an effort to keep that in mind." A bell rings out across the camp, neatly saving Severa from having to muster up another snappy response to Lucina’s unabashed sincerity. "That would be dinner, I suppose. Would you like me to light that before I go?" indicating a small lamp at Severa’s bedside table.

  
"Sure, I guess," trying not to inhale to sharply when Lucina leans across her to strike a match and dip it into the wick of the candle inside the lamp. As she withdraws, Severa meets her eyes by chance rather than volition, watches the Brand wink in and out of the light like a star ducking behind clouds. Stupid, even stupider than the last sappy, poetic thought. Severa bites the inside of her cheek until it stings.

  
"Are you sure there’s nothing I can get you?" she asks again, opening the flap of the tent. A pleasant breeze rolls in from behind her, lifting the ends of Severa’s hair and twirling them around.

  
"I’m not hungry," Severa says, immediately regretting the lie as her stomach churns. Lucina seems dubious for a moment, but doesn’t push the issue.

  
"Take care, then—Aunt Lissa said you should be up and about within the week after another healing or two."

  
"Great. I can’t wait to be the laughingstock of the entire camp once I start hobbling around like some old fat drunk." Lucina’s brows might quirk at the colorful analogy, or it might just be a trick of the light.

  
"I don’t imagine anyone will have anything to say about that—and if they do, they’ll answer to me."

  
"My hero," Severa drawls, almost in earnest. "Go eat before Brady scarfs it all down or something, okay?"

  
"Alright," Lucina says, clearly amused by the image of Brady "scarfing". "I’ll stop by later, if you don’t mind."

  
"Yeah," though Lucina is already gone, letting the flap flutter idly in her wake. Severa exhales hard, too hard, her battered ribs immediately regretting the action. She wishes she could roll over onto her stomach and bury her face in the pillows, but all she can do is ease herself back down into a sleeping position and make a tremendous effort to be unconscious again by the time Lucina comes back.


End file.
